Unmasked

A Marvel Crossover

Disclaimer

All recognisable characters and locations in this story are the sole copyright and trademark property of Marvel Comics Incorporated. No breach of either copyright or trademark is intended. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the worldwide web.

Author's Notes

Okay, this is an idea I had whilst reading up on the current plans Marvel has for my favourite superheroes. I'm talking, of course, about Power Pack. Now, don't laugh, but for a barely-teen boy back in the '80s, that series was the centre of the world. The characters were recognisably young people like myself with similar problems, attitudes and behaviours. I found that I genuinely cared about what would happen to them week-by-week. It was a pity that they started coming up with 'freshening up' gimmicks like swapping their powers around (isn't that a common problem with comic books?). I would have liked watching them grow up.

Of course, my ultimate reason for following Power Pack was a dreadful, hopeless crush on the lovely Julie Power, aka Lightspeed ;-)

Adding Franklin Richards to the line-up was an interesting idea on the creative team's part and I often wondered what would have happened as the team grew up together. What would be the consequences of the older members trying to date? Would the Fantastic Four learn the Power kids secret? Would Franklin's powers develop with time and would he get rid of that stupid 'Tattletale' codename?

So… I have assumed that Franklin and Julie are the same age and, as the years have gone by, they have slowly grown into their powers as part of Power Pack. Now, some five years after the Power kids received their powers from the dying Alfrae Whitemane, Franklin and Julie are about to be busted – in more ways than one.

Censor: T – Just for safety's sake

Chapter 1 – Busted!

Franklin Richards and Julie Power landed gently on the water-side decking of Pier Four and found themselves just grinning at each other for a long minute. "I... I cannot believe that you did that," Julie said with a slight giggle. "Reshaping their getaway car into body-cuffs? You have one weird imagination, Frank."

"And what about you?" Franklin countered. "Flying super-fast around someone to get them into a spin? And since when have you been able to fire kinetic blasts like that?"

Julie shrugged and grinned, maybe just a little flirtatiously, at her best boy friend. "There are lots of things you don't know about me, Omega," she said, her voice slightly lower in tone than usual. When she realised what she was doing, she blushed in the easy way of a fair-skinned redhead.

Franklin blushed too and swallowed, clearly nervous. "Yeah? Uh... Well, maybe..." the boy swallowed again. "Maybe I want to find out about them, Lightspeed."

The two teen heroes' hands touched and their gazes met in a combination of startlement and some kind of weird recognition. Almost on autopilot their hands clasped together; the two stepped towards each other and began to lean closer and closer. Julie could feel her blood rushing in her ears. Her breathing had become quick and shallow and all she could see was Frank's blue eyes as she leaned in, letting her free hand rest against his strong chest. Both teens eyes slid shut and they leant closer to...

"AHEM!"

The two fifteen year-olds sprang apart like cats who had just been doused with water at the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat. Franklin and Julie span to see a beautiful blonde woman standing in the open back door of the Pier 4 residence, back-lit by the kitchen light. Susan Richards, The Invisible Woman, glared at her firstborn child and the unidentified but so-obviously female interloper in her best 'You are in for it, kiddo' manner. She was more than pleased to note that the glare was working just fine. "Franklin Jonathan Richards, I assume that you have a good reason for being out so late on a school night? In a costume?"

"Um, yeah, about that," Franklin said with a nervous smile. How long had his mother been waiting there? Thanks to her invisibility powers, she could have been there the whole time! He was suddenly thankful that he hadn't used Julie's real name.

"Frank was helping me out on patrol, Mrs. Richards," Julie cut in quietly but firmly, drawing Sue's attention to her.

Sue looked at the girl (no, young woman, there was no doubting that) in the magenta and black costume and wished she could see the girl's eyes through the orange-tinted rimless goggles that formed part of her mask. The girl was nervous, yes, but Sue couldn't see any obvious threat or deception in her body language. Franklin, on the other hand, was practically sweating panic pheromones but, and Sue found this interesting, he had moved slightly in between her and the unidentified young lady in an unconsciously protective gesture. She sighed gently. It had to happen eventually, she reminded herself, both parts of it. "Frank," she began before shaking her head and sighing. "Frank, for pity's sake, take off the mask."

Franklin grinned in a slightly silly way before pulling down his partial-face mask, which covered the side of his face and crossed his eyes and the bridge of his nose so that it dangled around his neck. "Yeah, I guess I can let you know my 'secret identity', right, Mom?"

Sue sternly fought down her urge to smile at her son's mischievous tone and turned her azure gaze onto her guest, raising an eyebrow in a combination of query and a challenge for her to follow Frank's example in unmasking. "Um... if you don't mind, Mrs. Richards," the girl said, "I would prefer not to." Sue nodded, acknowledging that this was her right.

"So, Franklin has been out patrolling with you...? What should I call you anyway?"

"Her name is 'Lightspeed', Mom," Frank put in nervously.

"Lightspeed, eh? Well, was this little late-night adventure your idea, Lightspeed?"

Julie opened her mouth to reply, determined to take the blame on herself rather than let Frank get into trouble. However, Frank beat her to the punch. "It wasn't, Mom. It wasn't really mine either. It just... Well, it just happened, I guess, whilst we were practising using our powers." Frank rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "After we stopped that car from crashing, we stopped some street gang types from causing trouble. I told J... Lightspeed that we should come back the next night to make sure they had got the message not to try anything and... and... and..."

"And I guess we just got into the habit of going out every night to make sure everything in the neighbourhood was okay," Julie finished. "We stopped a convenience store robbery tonight!"

From the young lady's body language, Sue bet that, if she could see Lightspeed's eyes through her goggles, they would have been widened in excitement. I remember that buzz, she thought nostalgically. It was the slippery slope that everyone who wore the spandex knew, of course. After you had helped people once and felt the incredible rush of the fight then it was hard to the point of being near-impossible to stop doing it. She had hoped, though, that she would have at least had more time to prepare her son for the day when he felt the need to take the step into active superheroics. "Franklin," she said at last. "Didn't it occur to you to tell your father and I what you were doing? What would have happened if you two had bitten off more than you could chew? What if you had been hurt, captured or killed? We wouldn't have known about it until it was too late!"

"Uh... um..." Franklin shifted guiltily. "I guess I... I didn't think about that," he admitted.

"Of course not," Sue said. "I'll bet, however, that you thought that if you told either me or your father that we would have stopped you from doing it, right?" Both teens looked down in a combination of embarrassment and shame. Sue sighed and looked at the girl in magenta and black. "I assume that your parents don't know about this either?"

The girl looked up at the Richards matriarch, her hands clasped in front of her, making a 'washing' motion as they clenched and twisted and Sue easily read the emotion of extreme guilt. "They don't even know I have powers, Ma'am," she said at last.

Sue nodded. "Well then, given that fact and given that this is a school night, I think that you should be heading home, don't you?"

"Um... yeah," the girl responded sheepishly. She turned to Franklin. "I'll see you tomorrow, Frank?"

Before Franklin could reply, Sue interrupted. "I wouldn't count on that, honey. I'm afraid that your partner isn't going to be going anywhere unsupervised for quite a while." The look of horror on both teens' faces sorely tested Sue's need to keep a stern expression on her face. "However, if you want to visit him some time next week, I might be willing to permit that, so long as I or his father are allowed to sit in." Lightspeed looked at her, panic visible in every bit of her posture and expression. "You can come in costume and we won't ask any questions that you don't want to answer," Sue assured her gently.

Lightspeed nodded (a bit spasmodically). "Uh... okay," she said. "Um... so long, Frank. I'll... uh... see you," she said. She turned away and Sue watched as the girl tensed and crouched slightly, clearly about to call on her powers.

"Lightspeed?" Sue called out. The girl turned to look at her in puzzlement. "Think very carefully about telling your parents," she advised. "As dangerous as it is, it might be better for them to learn about this from your lips rather than from the media." Or from the lips of a policeman, SHIELD agent or, God forbid, a coroner, Sue added silently.

Lightspeed nodded, her lips compressing a little in worry. Then the girl turned away and raised her arms to either side like a gymnast signalling the end of her display. Her body was suddenly surrounded by a pencil-thin nimbus of multicoloured light and, as Sue watched, she lifted silently into the sky and soared off towards the heavens, leaving a visible sparkling trail of rainbow light behind her, her long red hair streaming out behind her like a banner. Sue's eyes followed the ascending superhuman teenager until her flight path took her behind the One Times Square tower and she was lost to sight.

"Costume off," Franklin said quietly. Sue watched as his red and black costume (stylistically similar to Lightspeed's) was suddenly surrounded by arcs of golden-white light, flashed brightly the same colour and vanished, leaving him standing in his regular white tee shirt (with navy blue '4' logo) and jeans.

"Unstable molecules?" Sue asked.

Franklin nodded. "Stored in a subspace pocket, according to Dad's instruments," he replied.

Sue was more than a little pleased that her son had taken the initiative to look at the mysteries of his costume rather than take things on trust and have a nasty surprise later (no one in the Superhero community was forgetting Venom any time soon). "Where did you get it?"

"Not my secret to tell, Mom," he replied. "I'll ask Lightspeed to check with the others to see if it is okay to let you know."

Now that phrase raised more questions than it answered and Sue found herself wondering in what exactly her son had got himself entangled. More importantly, with whom because, if Sue hadn't interrupted, she was pretty sure that her son had been on the verge of his first kiss. "Um... Franklin, how much do you really know about Lightspeed?"

"Quite a lot, Mom," Franklin said. He looked up at his mother and noticed the worry in her expression. "Yeah, I do know who she really is. If she is a part of a plot of Dr. Doom's, it is a really subtle one." Franklin grinned mischievously.

Sue nodded in acknowledgement but wasn't really reassured. Victor's plots usually were subtle, after all. "So... she goes to your school?"

Franklin opened his mouth to reply then paused and looked up at his mother with a clear look of annoyance and betrayal in his eyes. Sue mentally slapped herself for fishing for information but she couldn't help it! Her little boy was clearly very close to this young lady and she didn't even know her name beyond her nom de guerre! The frustrating thing about 'Lightspeed' was that Sue was sure she knew the girl from somewhere. The body language and that gentle, sweet Virginian accent was familiar to her if only she could... Sue shook her head firmly. Lightspeed had declined to reveal her secret identity to her and she was obliged to respect that by not trying to unmask her so long as she was not an overt threat to Frank. "Right. Stop fishing. Message received." Sue sighed and placed a hand on her son's shoulder. "We will discuss this at length tomorrow after school, young man," she declared. "In the meantime, off to bed with you. I assume that you have done your homework?"

Franklin grinned up at his mother, his annoyance of a few moments ago forgotten. "Yeah, we always make sure we've finished before going out on patrol," he said. "Lightspeed is a stickler for schoolwork and keeping up your grades." The boy turned away and walked back into the house that had been the family's home since Reed's lamentable skills at investment management lost them their old headquarters building, Four Freedoms Plaza.

"So, she does go to the same school as Franklin," Sue said with a slight smile. She wondered who she was. Redheads weren't that common after all. The blonde superhuman woman sighed and told herself, once again, to respect Lightspeed's privacy. The girl's identity was her secret to reveal, not Sue's to uncover.

As she closed and locked the rear door, Sue mused that she was really more worried about Julie, the oldest daughter of her good friend and fellow teacher Margaret Power. Julie had got very close to Franklin over the past year or so and the two had even been out together on what could be considered a 'date' not so long ago. Sue sipped on the cranberry tea that she would need to relax her enough to sleep tonight after all these revelations. As she did so, she mused that Julie Power was such a sweet-natured child and that it would be a shame for her heart to be broken because Franklin had found a superhuman girlfriend. Although, now Sue thought about it, a fellow superhuman might be a better choice for her son. She would know the life and be able to look after herself in most situations. Not everyone was as flexible and resilient as Mary-Jane Parker, after all.

Sue stood up, deciding that she would talk to Margaret tomorrow and see if Julie was okay. If Franklin had not broken up with her, she would talk to her son very seriously, as it was unfair and unethical to be leading on both the redheaded girls...

There was a crash as Sue's glass teacup fell from her suddenly numb fingers and smashed on the tile floor of the kitchen. In her mind's eye, she contrasted the quiet, reserved and thoughtful Julie Power with the costume-clad Lightspeed. Their body types were identical, the hairstyle, the observable body language... even the Virginian accent! The Power family was originally from Virginia before they moved to New York! Sue remembered Franklin's comments about homework and realised that such behaviour was completely in-character for the bookish and academically-inclined Julie.

"Oh... oh my God!" Sue gasped into the silence of the kitchen. "Julie! It's you! You're Lightspeed!"

Now Sue had a real ethical challenge to face. Margaret was a friend, after all - how much should she say and how long should she wait for Julie to make her choice as to whether to reveal her secret to her parents? Quite without meaning to, Julie had got Sue entangled up in her own secrets and the trials that come from living the double-life of a superhero! Sue Richards shook her head with a rueful smile. It's my own stupid fault, she told herself. Finding out a superhero's secret identity always gets you in trouble over your head!

Sue waited until she was sure Reed's service 'bots had finished clearing up the mess and then, with a slight laugh, went to bed. Tea or no, sleep would not come easily tonight.